I'm curious to know what controlsystems for streetlighting are in place in other countries and how well the schematics are kept up to date or not.

Ok this is around the greater Auckland area , New Zealand.

In West and North Auckland a pilot system is used via the tail and charley principle.Via substation lightcell through section switches usually 6 ( 4core )pilot circuits are following the main outgoing 11000 Volts feeders to the first contactor on pole, transformer or plynth, then 20 or so SL's then next contactor and so on. the H/W ccts following the same principle.An option to dump SL load from the sub is possible but I have never seen it happen.

Zellweger control in rural areas is the second option instead of pilots to save in extra pilot wires.

Where matters have turned to custard in areas where widening of the roads have caused pilot cables to be damaged or simply cut underneath the road, local lightcells are used or timeclocks for the control if repair and roadworks become to major to re instate the SL pilots.

The pilot system is also used for hotwater cylinders over the peak demand period.

Schematics are in general non existent especially in new subdivisions where the cheapest option was favoured and within weeks the problems start showing up when matters don't work as supposed too.

Are the systems metered or on a so many hours a year basis. The main motorways, Transit lights are metered as where the suburban SL's not.

Here, where I live, and assume it's like this in most of the country. Street lighting is run from the nearest source of power, and a photocell on each and every one. Or, one for ten or so. No meter at all... Many cities actually make the POCO pay rent for the space they use for thier poles, and dicount that against the lighting. Putting the city once again in the hole for 90% of the lighting cost. At bulk rate. Highways and freeways would have a simular arrangement. Doubtful any schematics are kept, other than underground, and doubtful they are up to date.

Rodalco,here in the UK most street lighting is controlled either by timeclock (a very old method here, and a Photocell set up on suburban streets.the main roads in and around the area a re always photcells on each pole, they are usually fed via there own supply that is somtimes tapped from the local cabling in the roadway.

some new installations jave there own cabling going back to a connection box by the side of the street. this is the norm for the side streets and suburban roadways.

the highways (motorways) are diferent, some have a control cabinate for up to 30 190 watt Low Pressure Sodium (SOX) or 400/100 watt Metal Halide or White Sodium these are again in banks of 30 or 40 fittings on poles or cantenary suspension to the centre divider.

the supply is metered on highways but not on surburban streets and the local authoriyty pays for the installation and the POCO p[ays a low rate for lighting them (from what i have been told, please correct me if i am wrong on this)

there are still some Mercury Vapour lamps (MBF)out here and some Mercury Blended Lamps (MBFU) the only good thing with MBFU is that there aint no control gear there connected direct to the supply via a fusable link in the pole.

we used to have ordinary 100watt incandesant (GLS) rough service lamps on a pole with small square mirror reflectors,in the lense area above, these over the last 30 years have been updated to mercury and the sodium of Metal halide.

the GLS lamp standrtds as they were known usually end up on peoples drive ways converted to mercury, they had no lamp protection just a bare lamps in all weathers !!!

kids with catapults used to practice breaking them!!!!

ans steeling th timeclocks or adjsuting the on and off tiles, it was funny when the street had a power outage an the clocks all neede to be reset !!!

Around me there are a couple of methods of controlling street lighting.

Outside my house on the edge of the pavement there is a mini pillar (3 phase & neutral box with a 400/230v supply) for the houses in the street.The street lighting is supplied from this (unmetered) and the control is through a photo electric cell switched from a few streets away. The supply is daisy chained and brings on a contactor in the box.

Newer house estates have a box with an enclosure and a lamp with a photo electric sensor in the head of a nearby lamp postcontrolling a contactor ant the street lights in the area. Each cabinet is independent of any others and they are not metered - just pickinhg up a supply from the street.

Here in NZ when the SL's fail for whatever reasons, there is usually a lot of noise from locals who complain about security which is fair enough. Still a pity that SL ccts are often a afterthought and the cabling is put in afterwards and not at the same time when the area was recticulated.The POCO's are slack in regard with providing schematics in transformers.

Lack of section fuses is an other problem.some ccts may have 6 or 7 different branch offs all connected to the SL busbar. One fault and all is out. At least with fuses you limit the area in darkness.

One of my workmates said "you can't rewire the poco, just go with the flow".

With the pilot system, if one string fails , everything downstream of the cct is off. ok there is a visual indication at night what is out , sometimes quite a large area, a temp fix is done. e.g. 24 hour the lights till there is time to sort out the problem / locate and isolate the faulty circuit.

I can see that the lightcell has it's advantages for each pole although it's not done in the city, mainly because POCO's like to see the lights come on in bulk at the same time instead of scattered all over the place.

They don't seem to worry too much over the inrushcurrent, Amagine 10,000 SON' lamps 150 Watts all striking at the same time on one circuit from a sub cct.

Most lamps in NZ are 80 / 150 or 250 Watts SON. SOX are extinct in Auckland, some in industrial areas but because of colour rendering they have been phased out over the last 15 years. They used to have a great life span I recall. around 15,000 hrs.

Where I work we also install, operate and maintain the streetlights for the majority of the local authorities.

We use a 3 core cable which comprises a live, neutral and a switchwire. Each set of streetlights is fed from a substation or feeder pillar via a relay which is operated by the switchwire.

The switchwire will be controlled from one point in the village or town, and will be operated by a timeswitch or a photocell or a combination of both. Most of the streetlights here come on at dusk until 1am, and are then off until 6am when they come back on until the photocell switches them off. We also use a specific timeswitch here which alters the switch on time depending on the time of year it is - very clever for a clockwork thingy.

The streetlighting system isn't metered, and the local authorities are charged based on the number of lights, their wattage and the estimated burn time.

Ray,Down south here as far as Delta Power and Electricity Ashburton go, Street-lights are slowly being changed from 70W SON to Metal-Halide equivalents.To a degree we've changed out to 75W M-H, but we have had a lot of thank-you letters from people we never expected them from.Colour rendering here has, from a safety standpoint, saved a lot of lives.Motorists can recognise a wider range of colours when predestrians are involved.HID technology is getting better by the minute, there is no reason why the world at night should be bathed in Orange/Black colours.It's like being in the time of the Mercury Arc Lamp.Metal Halide is the way of the future.

Pilot wire systems used to be employed more here in the past. Out here in rural Norfolk where a lot of distribution is overhead, if you look around the poles you'll often see an extra bracket, now minus its insulator, where a pilot wire for the street lighting through some tiny hamlet once ran.

There's even a spot a few miles from me where the pilot wire is still in place -- Noticeably thinner than the other four (3P+N) conductors. I'm not even sure if that wire has just been abandoned and the lights changed to photocells or individual timers, or whether it's still actually in use.

Interesting system on Isle of Man as ianh describes by having an off period of the streetlights between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m.Is power here diesel generated??

How does that work out with crime and the likes? We have found in NZ when streetlights fail, the crime rate like grafitti etc increases. especially over a longer period.

The clocks with the "clever thingy" are called astronomical clocks. they have the actual time pins slide over the disc side and every 24 hours they move a few minutes / secs depending on the time of year. These also have a full clockwork mechanism which keeps them going for about 36 hours in case of power faillure.The type we use are AEG 10/1 101.204ys. about 40 years old in case we have pilot problems. They have to be for the correct geographical time zone.

<quote>Interesting system on Isle of Man as ianh describes by having an off period of the streetlights between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m.Is power here diesel generated??

Before 2000 the island relied on diesel, but we now have an AC interconnector to the UK and a new CCGT plant.

<quote> How does that work out with crime and the likes? We have found in NZ when streetlights fail, the crime rate like grafitti etc increases. especially over a longer period.

The streetlights stay on in the main town on the island which is where any vandalism would be expected. The island thankfully has a very low crime rate, and vandalism of any sort outside of our main town is very rare.